3 years ago, I found myself in an arranged marriage that turned out to be marriage fraud for immigration. Had I not struggled with my self esteem and self confidence due to my weight, I don't know that I would have compromised so much to be with someone. But the positive that came out of that situation was me realizing my self-worth. Realizing that I deserve the best and that if the only thing holding me back from loving myself and finding someone like me is my weight, then that's what I have to work on losing.

Far too often over weight women are told to start working on their self esteem by reading “self affirmations” such as “I'm beautiful” and “I'm worth it”. While these affirmations may help, the root cause of why you don't feel good about yourself is not being addressed. The fact of the matter is, that in order to love yourself, you need to feel and look healthy. What “healthy” mean is different for each woman.

For me, it was coming down to a size 10, but for another woman it might be getting to a size 18 or size 14 from where she currently is.

My goal in life is to inspire women to start their health and wellness journey. It's time. If I can do it, so can you. When I was nearly 400 pounds, I huffed and puffed walking from one side of the house to the other. But I kept pushing myself. Today, I'm so grateful to God that I'm able to do workouts like P90x3 and ChaLean extreme. Something I never imagined I was capable of.

Today I'm excited to work out and to encourage other women to continue to work out and shift their entire life style to one that's healthy and sustainable. There is magic pill that you can take to lose weight. It requires hard work, discipline and determination.

Motivation has to come from within. Only you can convince yourself not to have a bag of chips or a chocolate bar. No one else can :) I just know for myself that having eaten 2 croissants, 2 danishes and a Tim Hortons biscuit each day for many years, that I have had enough sugar and fat to last me a life time.

Between the stretch marks and excess skin, I won't ever be a supermodel, but I know that even super models struggle with how they feel about themselves. I'm happy to say that I'm determined to keep moving forward and slowly but surely I'm starting to accept and love myself with all my flaws.

So, don't wait another day. In urdu there is a phrase that I have really come to appreciate “Kal karey so aaj kar. Aaj karey so abi kar.” Translation: What you can leave for tomorrow do today, what you have to do today, do now.

Take your self worth into your own hands. You deserve to be happy and the best YOU that you can be. You won't know how much you can accomplish until you push yourself. I won't say it's easy, but it's definitely achievable.